Sejuani is relevant for sixteen seconds, nerfed.

Uiru··328 votes·14,100 views

Lee Sin dominates the jungle for three years and permanently warps the metagame, a-ok.

Thanks for continuing to make your priorities clear, Riot. Maybe if you'd just give Sejuani more mobility you can stop nerfing her so much. Because champs pay nothing for mobility and actually tend to be stronger than those without it anyway. Because balance!

"But it's just the PBE" The last time a meaningful change turned up on the PBE and got reverted was WAIT FOR IT

LEE FUCKING SIN

AND THE CROWD GOES WILD

BECAUSE THAT'S THE ONLY PRIORITY RIOT UNDERSTANDS

edit the first: It's good to see most of the BUT MUH WINRATE idiots being downvoted into oblivion. Keep up the good work, people whose public education systems did not utterly fail them.

edit the second: I replied a couple of times to a few of the less belligerent responses with a message that I will summarize thusly. Whether or not the Sej nerfs are justified or even fair is not the point. The point is, some champions get brought back in line immediately at the first hint of trouble and some are allowed to run free. Any team that purports to have "balance" as one of its goals cannot be playing favorites, but Riot has proven time and again that favorites are how they are operating. (Compare Lee Sin's impact on the game with Sona's and you'll see my point. OH NO SHE SANG AT ME FOR >0% DAMAGE)

To the imaginary Riot balance team member who will respond to this saying "we don't balance based on favorites": Yes you do. You can say you don't all you like. You do. We laughed when Morello said they don't hate supports and we will laugh if you bother to show your face here at all (you won't). That you want to nerf Sej is not the problem. The problem is all the other game-warping champions you let run free to do as they please.

edit the third: READ EDIT THE SECOND GUYS, SOME OF YOU HAVE MISSED IT ~Uiru

329 Comments

Dunal87 votes

The nerfs aren't that much at all though.

Nerfing the ult slow to 30% means nothing when Sej can simply just press E to turn it into a 70%+ slow. Or. .you know... actually landing the ult.

Losing 2% max health shred on W but gaining 20 damage on E... is potentially a buff on targets with less than 2k health. And E's cooldown is lower than W's once both are maxed.

It's not exactly a gutting...

Her win rate will probably drop by like 1-2% but that's it.

junglerboy1626 votes

It is just a love tap to her early clear, and will leave a good Sejuani player just where they should be. Her issue was that a ton of players were picking her up (her pick rate nearly tripled) and doing just fine with her. This will be more of a "separate the good from the great" kind of balance change, not anything devastating like people are complaining about.

P.S. I would also laugh so hard if they finally have Lee nerfs this patch cycle, it would shut up the whiners for at least a week.

LeeDark10 votes

Yeah, it would shut them up for the week he remains nerfed, until Riot comes out and says, "Well, there was too much backlash about the Lee Sin nerfs, so we reverted them." Thus proving the point that they play favorites. I know this because it already happened, despite the fact that there was much much less Lee Sin nerf backlash than Veigar, Sona, or even Sejuani here.

Dengeden13 votes

Dude, Rito bias. Don't question it.

ALthaGreat19 votes

No RIOT (not rito troll) is not biased. they are a professional gaming company who are doing their best. Just because all you players think it's wrong doesn't make it wrong. Get off your high horse.

Nucleophilic atk66 votes

I actually think it is pretty clear they have favorites.

SmknWdl43 votes

I agree. Nidalee Elise. Both similar. One has received major attention. The other rots in nerfville

Marinaras Trench23 votes

The other one was accused of being loved by riot around 6 months ago. #KEEPTHECIRCLEJERKGOING

Remlap122332 votes

ERROR! ERROR! DIFFERING OPINION DETECTED! CIRCLEJERKING THRESHOLD NOT MET! RECOMMENDING IMMEDIATE FLAMING FOR THIS USER!

The5lacker22 votes

The fact that they're nerfing her at all is ludicrous. Not the degree that she's being nerfed: The fact that the balance team went "Man, this champ is on an upswing, we can't have that!" and immediately dropped the hammer while champions like Lee, Zed, and Nid are complained about by an enormous chunk of the community on a daily basis and nothing is being done about it.

Uiru14 votes

{quoted}

The nerfs aren't that much at all though.

Nerfing the ult slow to 30% means nothing when Sej can simply just press E to turn it into a 70%+ slow. Or. .you know... actually landing the ult.

Losing 2% max health shred on W but gaining 20 damage on E... is potentially a buff on targets with less than 2k health. And E's cooldown is lower than W's once both are maxed.

It's not exactly a gutting...

Her win rate will probably drop by like 1-2% but that's it.

Whether or not she needs nerfs, and whether or not those nerfs are fair, is actually 100% irrelevant to this discussion.

The fact is that action gets taken against one list of champions (most of them) immediately at the slightest hint of a problem, while other champions (a much smaller list) are allowed to run free. There is a third list (mostly supports) that are just punching bags. If they need to fill a nerf quota they just hit Janna or Sona again and call it a day.

That Riot's "balance" team is adhering to these lists is an enormous problem. Riot is literally telling us which champs to play (Lee Sin, Zed, Thresh, perhaps a few others) and which champs not to play (Sona, Janna, several others). If you happen to have a main on the good list you are a-okay. If you play mostly immobile mages and traditional supports like I do, the sky is a much different color.

I'm probably going to c&p this a few times, so unless you smell toast you don't need to contact a doctor. ~Uiru

Pastramka3 votes

Riot is literally telling us which champs to play (Lee Sin, Zed, Thresh, perhaps a few others

I think its more they want us to watch them get played more in LCS.

But there is one thing that I thought they don't get, If i don't play lol I wont wacth the competitive scene. And If I hate 3 toxic champs picked on red side and 3 toxic picked on blue... I'm not gonna have fun watching it also.

But they don't care for me. Keeping this favorite champs trend wont pay off much, but it is still the safest bet to earn.

Here is why:

All they are doing is not for the community, it is for a future community - aspiring 10y olds that are more likely to spend their lunch money on skins and beg on Christmas for RP.

How do they get their attention? - LCS matches, plays that look fast, packed with action, smart strategy is not a part of it. Also trolling supports/champs like Bard and Kal are a big part of this, champs that can produce devastating mistakes in a pro match; Riot will just smile and think after play like this "Yeah! Let me entertain you!" - that's why safe supporting champs are nerfed to the ground. Deleting a team just buy one players mistake is definition for fun spectating on LCS.

Once those kids play for at least 2 years they realize what kind of toxic balances Riot is capable of, but Riot doesn't care, those have already paid their share. And a new batch of 10y olds need to be attracted.

Disclaimer: Age has nothing to do with this, I just picked a number so i can draw a picture more easily.

CubedJustice4 votes

Now, I don't think riot is being quite fair, and I am on your side, so don't have a cow. But in all fairness, safer champions shouldn't be as strong or game impacting. Not to riot's extent, but if you're choosing to play safely, then you should also be choosing to be weaker in a different form.

hashinshin6 votes

2% of 2k is 40, not 20.

aperson114 votes

The problem is not that Riot is responding to a dominant champion quickly.

Anybody who played Sejuani before Cinderhulk knows she was going to be top-tier when it released.

The problem is that Riot is showing that they CAN respond to a dominant champion quickly.

If Sejuani is getting nerfed immediately but Lee Sin is not, that means they are consciously choosing not to touch Lee Sin, who has been dominant nearly ever since his release.

That said, I agree that these are very light changes.

Shinjusuke25 votes

The point isn't the numbers, the point is that Riot plays favorites with who gets nerfed and under what what criteria those nerfs "need to happen".

OP is right, Lee Sin HAS dominated the jungle for 3 years, with very short windows (I'm talking like 1-maybe-2-patches-long windows) of being perhaps a 2nd tier pick rather than top tier pick that's good on any team, and very obviously warps the jungle metagame with a kit that makes literally zero meaningful trade-offs in any area with regards to "what you want a jungler to be able to do".

Meanwhile, no nerfs for Lee Sin and the only champion in LoL history to have his needed rework cancelled purely because his "mains" whined enough, and that is proof of favoritism plainly viewable by anyone. Regardless of how you feel about his balance state or the (honestly, not rationally debatable) overloaded state of his kit, you cannot deny Riot's favoritism for the champion.

Sejuani is overpowered with the introduction of the new item, that is to be sure. But that's not the issue. The issue is the instant Sejuani goes from "strong" to "overpowered", Riot nerfs her, while Lee Sin has three fucking years of being a top pick and blatantly going against everything Riot claims as a design paradigm for their jungle and yet get no real hits to his power or versatility, ever.

The point OP is making really has nothing to do with "Sejuani got nerfed too hard", it's the fact that because Riot has such ridiculously obvious favoritism when it comes to the jungle, every other jungler gets instantly changed as soon as they're a little too powerful, except for Lee Sin, who is allowed to be a dominating pick that by Riot's own definition not only has an incredibly flawed design but also goes against literally everything Riot has ever said about how the jungle should function.

Axel Nightroad5 votes

{quoted}

The nerfs aren't that much at all though.

Nerfing the ult slow to 30% means nothing when Sej can simply just press E to turn it into a 70%+ slow. Or. .you know... actually landing the ult.

Losing 2% max health shred on W but gaining 20 damage on E... is potentially a buff on targets with less than 2k health. And E's cooldown is lower than W's once both are maxed.

It's not exactly a gutting...

Her win rate will probably drop by like 1-2% but that's it.

But I don't think that is the point. The point is that champs like Lee have been dominating for a long time with little to no changes, meanwhile Sejuani gets put in the spotlight for less than a week and there are already changes out on the PBE for her.

Sally34 votes

[deleted]

Hupsis7 votes

Because a champion with 60% winrate is the epitome of balance?

Puaru9 votes

{quoted}

Because a champion with 60% winrate is the epitome of balance?

Riot should at least wait a patch or two and let people actually learn how to play against her before nerfing her back to the bottom 10 picked champions. The way Riot knee jerk balances shit just reeks of amateur design. I can't remember a time when Blizzard alternatively nerfed and buffed the same thing in over and over again in the course of 6 patches. If something is considered strong in StarCraft, they didn't just gut it immediately, and go figure, strategies always emerge to counter play.

The5lacker22 votes

Because a 60% winrate for a single week is the epitome of conclusive evidence?

Shadow Gilgamesh34 votes

Let's calm our tits here for a second, her W might have a slight nerf to the empowered auto(not confirmed), but E got buffed, and her ult only got the "if you miss" portion nerfed, there's a lot of skill shot ults that just DON'T HAVE a you missed consolation prize, so I can't be too mad about it not being a 90% slow if people were too close at the end of the shot but not hit.

This is hardly the crippling we saw of say, Warwick after the godwick patch

Uiru10 votes

[{quoted}](name=Shadow Gilgamesh,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=YNITdJEZ,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2015-03-17T20:40:02.456+0000)

Let's calm our tits here for a second, her W might have a slight nerf to the empowered auto(not confirmed), but E got buffed, and her ult only got the "if you miss" portion nerfed, there's a lot of skill shot ults that just DON'T HAVE a you missed consolation prize, so I can't be too mad about it not being a 90% slow if people were too close at the end of the shot but not hit.

This is hardly the crippling we saw of say, Warwick after the godwick patch

Whether or not she needs nerfs, and whether or not those nerfs are fair, is actually 100% irrelevant to this discussion.

The fact is that action gets taken against one list of champions (most of them) immediately at the slightest hint of a problem, while other champions (a much smaller list) are allowed to run free. There is a third list (mostly supports) that are just punching bags. If they need to fill a nerf quota they just hit Janna or Sona again and call it a day.

That Riot's "balance" team is adhering to these lists is an enormous problem. Riot is literally telling us which champs to play (Lee Sin, Zed, Thresh, perhaps a few others) and which champs not to play (Sona, Janna, several others). If you happen to have a main on the good list you are a-okay. If you play mostly immobile mages and traditional supports like I do, the sky is a much different color.

I'm probably going to c&p this a few times, so unless you smell toast you don't need to contact a doctor. ~Uiru

DomainSpecific6 votes

Action was taken because, while Lee is picked twice as often as Sejuani, he has 46% win rate (bottom 10), while Sejuani has 57% (top 1).

LeeDark15 votes

Winrates are not a measure of champ strength. If anything, pick rates are a better indicator, because people play what they think will win. Lee Sin's high pick rate shows that the VAST majority of the community understands that he wins games, even if they don't understand HOW he wins well enough to actually succeed when playing him.

Champions with lower pick rates will have naturally higher win rates, because the only people playing them are those DEDICATED to that champion. You should always look at lower pick rate champions as being about 10% lower than the stats say they are. Or look at them as 5% lower and the massively popular champions at 5% higher.

Uperior29 votes

Sejuani is a little much, but it is kinda funny how as soon as she's doing good she gets nerfed where other champions people complain about don't.

Just a pretty big double standard that's REALLY obvious. :P

revliledpembroke18 votes

Obviously, this proves Rito is supporting Ashe or Lissandra for the throne of the Freljord.

ForgiveColour16 votes

LETS PRETEND 60% WINRATE IS BALANCED

-retards on board

buh buh winrate isnt everyting senpai~~~~

The5lacker23 votes

Win Rate isn't everything. People just don't know how to counter her. I.E. early invade, some map awareness, and perhaps a little bit of, I dunno, initiating intelligently.

ForgiveColour7 votes

60% win rate doesnt mean anything to you? wtf?

DrCyanide13 votes

The5lacker:

Win Rate isn't everything.

LangMo:

win rate doesnt mean anything to you?

There's a difference between everything and anything.

Unless I'm forgetting something, Amumu and Rammus had similar win rates at various times, but fell back down without direct changes to them. Not saying Sej does or doesn't need nerfs, but it would seem there's something more to the win rates of Tanky Junglers than their kits and numbers.

DemiluniS2 votes

also people don't know how to dodge spears and engage on a poke champion, buy magic resist against leblanc, outplay zed/lee, but it's alright classic boards.

The5lacker5 votes

The problem with those champions is consistency. If you dodge 90% of all spears thrown at you, that's still one spear every minute on average. Combine that with Nid's traps that warn her about ganks, her heals, her ability to jump walls without mana on a six second cooldown, and the fact that she's an assassin with heals and poke, and Nid's a problem in more ways than one. Sej is strong right now, but only really at one thing, which is engaging and engaging hard. Which, I'm gonna be honest, I don't see as nearly as much of a problem as endless, game-changing harassment and ridiculous escape potential.

I mean, hell, isn't that the reason Kass got gutted?

Messaiga14 votes

She's been strong ever since her changes in 4.21. It just so happens that those changes didn't put her directly into the spotlight. Thus her play rate remained lower. After 5.5 her play rate increased dramatically after just like, 3 days (because Cinderhulk happens to make her an entirely different beast as the game progresses). Those PBE changes won't gut her by a long-shot, but it is impossible to deny she is strong right now.

About Lee Sin, I understand the dread that we all share about him. The simple thing though is that it will likely take a rework to remove him from the top of the food chain, and even then he doesn't dominate solo queue that hard. The only place Lee is really a problem is up in higher ELOs and professional play where people know him inside and out. He happens to be strong due to being a generalist.

Once they rework him they can keep the generalist, but he SHOULD have weaknesses. A generalist that has weakness(es)? Ezreal. Ezreal lacks waveclear, all of his abilities are skill-shots, and he has one mobility spell. On the flip side, he is never really irrelevant throughout the game (provided he isn't falling behind) and has strengths he can play to (Global Ult, strong poke, CDR via his Q).

edit: Also worth noting, if these nerfs do happen to impact Sejuani enough that people stop playing her as much they'll probably just flock to Amumu who plays very similarly.

LeeDark1 votes

No, Lee Sin does not need a rework. He is supposed to be an early game pressure jungler. So why then does he have 200% bonus AD scaling on his ult and EXECUTE damage on his Q? Those are late game scaling beast numbers. All he needs is a SERIOUS nerf to his scaling, rather than the pathetic slap on the wrist "can no longer apply the shield to a ward.. but he can still jump to them" Riot gave him last time.

Messaiga4 votes

By rework I didn't necessarily mean new skills and crap. But more like a gameplay update, like what they did with Viktor. Switch around some of his power but preserve his identity. Right now he scales super hard and if he doesn't build damage past Warrior or Warrior + Hydra he still puts out considerable damage later in the game. It should be more like he goes from high damage early game to focus on his utility later. Currently he has high damage early, but due to his high base damages, scaling, and execute on Q his damage does not fall off as hard as it should (though, that isn't to say he should be punished for building more AD than he currently does).

He also has some really unnecessary things in his kit (like true vision on Q and E, should just be normal vision). His energy costs are also not very meaningful. Just rearranging his power while keeping the basis of his kit intact (high mobility, damage on Q2 increases as enemy health drops, long-distance knockback on Ult) would serve him and the game better.

Kingsgrave13 votes

"nerf lee instead of sejuani"

Sejuani Jungle: 57.47% Winrate with 19.14% Playrate and 8.38% Banrate LeeSin Jungle: 45.22% Winrate with 19.95% Playrate and 2.46% Banrate

Taken from http://champion.gg/statistics/#?sortBy=general.playPercent&order=descend&roleSort=Jungle

Btw, these rates are taken using Riot's API and only from Plat or higher games.

Sejuani also has an above 50% winrate against every Jungler except for DrMundo Sion

I understand why you guys hate Lee, but nerfing him is not even remotely justified especially compared to Sejuani.

Also with Sejuani thats only going to make Sion more appealing especially since he has a higher winrate than her currently and counters her according to the above stats.

IcyPepper4 votes

Damn! His pick rate dropped 6% in a single day?

Kingsgrave3 votes

{quoted}

Damn! His pick rate dropped 6% in a single day?

The stats are from Plat and higher games only.

His playrate was actually around 31-27% before 5.6

IcyPepper5 votes

That's... really high. Even if his winrate is a bit low, that's pretty dominant...

Kingsgrave6 votes

{quoted}

That's... really high. Even if his winrate is a bit low, that's pretty dominant...

Hes a pretty identifiable archetype, has a cool voice and aesthetic, neat skins, kit is pretty versatile and fun. He is actually somewhat difficult to play and doesn't win much because of it. People will probably play him no matter what unless they Olaf'd him.

IcyPepper11 votes

He's also in LCS a lot too... that probably helps.

I think a lot of people want him to be Olaf'd because of the pick rate. They're tired of Rito being careful with Lee Sin, and utterly Olaf'ing others like there's special treatment. That's not how I feel (I just think some nerfs/buffs are odd, like the nerf to Sejuani's ult having nothing to do with what suddenly made her strong this patch), but what I think others might be feeling.

Rinky Dinky10 votes

You act like she doesn't need nerfs.

She does.

So calm down.

The nerfs are very fair too. Instead of gutting her like before, they made landing her ult actually matter, and BUFFED her early clears.

I would recommend you do not forget about the machete buffs.

Uiru9 votes

{quoted}

You act like she doesn't need nerfs.

She does.

So calm down.

The nerfs are very fair too. Instead of gutting her like before, they made landing her ult actually matter, and BUFFED her early clears.

I would recommend you do not forget about the machete buffs.

Whether or not she needs nerfs, and whether or not those nerfs are fair, is actually 100% irrelevant to this discussion.

The fact is that action gets taken against one list of champions (most of them) immediately at the slightest hint of a problem, while other champions (a much smaller list) are allowed to run free. There is a third list (mostly supports) that are just punching bags. If they need to fill a nerf quota they just hit Janna or Sona again and call it a day.

That Riot's "balance" team is adhering to these lists is an enormous problem. Riot is literally telling us which champs to play (Lee Sin, Zed, Thresh, perhaps a few others) and which champs not to play (Sona, Janna, several others). If you happen to have a main on the good list you are a-okay. If you play mostly immobile mages and traditional supports like I do, the sky is a much different color.

I'm probably going to c&p this a few times, so unless you smell toast you don't need to contact a doctor. ~Uiru

JJ H0G10 votes

Lets see a bronze Lee stomp the shit out of people every game and get that 60% win rate and high pick rate across all ranks.

The Lee Sin QQ is just annoying at this point. I don't even give a flying fuck about LCS games, so if Lee is being picked a lot up at plat+, I'm not going to be bothered.

Electro5225 votes

Amen. Down here in Bronze/Silver, people are more concerned about Annie, Vi, and Kat. Every now and then, I see a good Lee Sin, but most of the time, their performance is mediocre. If they do well on Lee, good for them. I don't really mind.

Ltank1299 votes

I think this just shows what we can expect from Riot. The first thing they said when the new jungle was made was that they were promoting jungle diversity. Since then, they have worked and worked on the jungle to make it extremely wonderful to play, if you are playing one of their beloved trio, Vi JarvanIV or LeeSin

Meanwhile they sing of champion diversity. Enter Cinderhulk, hoping to bring tank junglers back into the fray. Result? The rise of Sejuani , always a contestant for the triad, but never quite strong enough, until now.

Suddenly, Nerfed.

Jungle Diversity my Giant Boar's Hiney. If nothing else proved Riots hypocrisy, this definitely does.

DEmperor956 votes

Generally, when a champion becomes an outlier in terms of strength (outlier means >55% win rate, by quite a margin), then this champion is definitely a little too strong. It doesn't matter how weak this champion was before, how popular he was, what criteria or role this champion performs, or how popular or strong other champions are. She definitely is too strong and deserves a small nerf.

She's not nerfed because she's not Lee Sin, she's nerfed justly because this is how balance works in the game. She was very strong rocking a 54% win rate before the item changes, so it's only natural to see her become even stronger with it now. Please stop looking at the situation the way you do. Thank Riot there is jungle diversity now, and this nerf won't ruin it in any way. Sejuani will still be a very strong pick.

Only Play Darius3 votes

Sejuani was overbearing in that she was mobile, impossible to kill in a 2v1, AND still did a shitload of damage.

Name me one other champion that is like that when not fed.

HandheldBrandon6 votes

Vi LeeSin Fizz Nautilus Udyr

Every single one of those champs if they haven't been feeding the entire game can easily 2v1 and survive and at least get 1 kill. Vi and Lee are the exception in that they could probably kill both people depending on who they were fighting. In Naut's case if hes fighting the support and the Carry he can easily wipe out one or the other but probably wont be able to kill both.

More from Gameplay

More by Uiru